Find Your Adventure

July 2008

July 30, 2008

The summer snows on the Kamchatka Peninsula began to thaw last week just as the world press turned its spotlight on this oft-forgotten corner of Siberia. After the Russian news agency ITAR-Tass reported that two guards at the Koryakgeologia Mine near Khailino had been mauled to death by a rampaging gang of giant bears, the Associated Press picked up the story. Newspaper readers all over the world were left to gaze at the sordid headlines in bewilderment: Starving bears eat 2 men in Russia.

The articles could have been written by the Brothers Grimm. Thirty bears had surrounded Khailino and Korf, two sleepy hamlets where scared villagers refused to leave their homes. Viktor Leushkin, a Khailino town elder voiced his concern that the bears had developed a taste for human blood and the government of the Kamchatka Krai province sent out a team of hunters and snipers to quell the ursine rebellion.

July 28, 2008

If you fall off that horse… keep on trying to row across the Pacific. At least that's the strategy for Dutchman Ralph Tuijn, whose cross-Pacific Zeeman Ocean Challenge came to an end last week after two aborted attempts (which cost him his solo, non-stop goal) when he docked in Papua New Guinea. But don't worry, he says he'll be back to try again.

Finish lines abound on the Greenland icecap and food seems to be on the mind. The three Norwegian "Girls in Gale" and the young British duo headed home after their cross-Greenland treks and found themselves excited (and nervous) to eat anything but the now-familiar freeze-dried grub. The Petes celebrated their 85-day kite, ski, and walk with another delicacy: real coffee.

July 24, 2008

Finding a beach that is not covered with umbrellas and lounge chairs is no small task in the Greek Isles.

I found one on Patmos, where a friend of a friend led me as if I was being taken to a secret hideout. It was small and rocky, the water clear and blue--just what you would imagine Greece's islands to be like.

"Imagine" is the key word here. It was among the few beaches I came upon that was not conquered by row upon row of plastic chairs and umbrellas during my sojourn around the Aegean this month.

Maybe it is just me who thought this was not a good thing. A French woman and her husband, who arrived on a cruise ship and accidentally stumbled upon the same "secret" Patmos beach in their rental car, left in search of a better place. She told me she was uncomfortable on a beach without a lot of chairs and umbrellas. "It just does not feel like a real beach to me," she explained.

July 22, 2008

Werner Herzog’s latest film, Encounters at the End of the World, recently opened nationwide. It is a documentary about Antarctica—specifically about McMurdo Station, headquarters of the National Science Foundation (which helped fund the film), and the people living and working in this community of 1,100 at the bottom of the planet.

A little more than a year ago, I spoke to the director about his movie Rescue Dawn, among other things (read the full interview here). He had returned from McMurdo only days before. “What is this film about?” I asked. He paused. “I’m still figuring that out,” he replied.

Encounters is not Herzog’s best film. But it is still thrilling to watch, and worth the price of admission. It is, in many ways, the anecdote to the summer blockbusters. The film is simple, spare; not much more than the German filmmaker and a cameraman walking around McMurdo, meeting folks, seeing them work, and extracting their life stories. It contains several beautiful, bizarre moments that are probably best described as being Herzogian: a suicidal penguin, a failed survival drill with bags over participants’ heads, and Weddell seals communicating beneath the ice through noises described (accurately) as sounding like Pink Floyd.

Watching Encounters reminded me of an oft-repeated Herzog quote: “If I opened a film school, I would make everyone earn their tuition themselves by working. Not in an office, but out where there is real life.” And so much the better if you have a camera with you.

Al Gore challenged the country to produce 100 percent of our electricity from renewable, clean and carbon free energy by 2018. Key to success: Lots of cooperation, an emphasis on solar, wind, and geothermal energy, and a CO2 tax. ("We should tax what we burn, not what we earn.") Some cities are growing greener, but gas is still raking in the problems: California, for example, uses more gas than any country in with world (beside the United States). Perhaps we should take a cue from the England, where the Ze-0, a fully electric five-seat family car, debuts this week.

This weekend New Yorkers caught up on our other national obsession – obesity – with mandatory calorie counts now on menus. But maybe soon we can fight obesity and global warming at the same time: A carbon neutral gym on the water powered by human sweat and pumping iron could be on the way.

July 21, 2008

As the Olympic torch draws closer to Beijing, where the beacon will signal the beginning of the ancient games on August 8, athletes from around the world are arriving in China for their final days of preparation. And if this year's Olympic trials were any indicator, we will see some amazing feats of athleticism—and broken world records.

While these records only compare how fast, strong, or agile humans are against each other, imagine if we compared our abilities to the other inhabitants of this big blue marble we call Earth.

The fastest 100-meter freestyle swim by a human was clocked by Alain Bernard of France at 47.5 seconds on March 22 at the European Championships. That time translates to nearly 5 mph, a slow crawl compared to the marine world. According to the Reefquest Center for Shark Research, Bernard could out-swim an eel (2.4 mph) and barely keep up with a sea trout (5.4 mph). But when it comes to the big players, no human on Earth would win a race with the bottlenose dolphin (17 mph), the mako shark (31 mph) or the killer whale (34.5 mph). To check out what speeding along on the back on a seal looks like, watch National Geographic’s Crittercam.

The world record for swiftest 100-meter sprint was set on May 31 by Usain Bolt of Jamaica at 9.72 seconds. Convert that to mileage and this man can run an astounding 23 mph. Pair him against a chicken, squirrel, or black mamba snake and he will win every time; their speeds clock in at 9, 12 and 20 mph respectively. Compare Bolt to a grizzly bear or a house cat (both can run up to 30 mph) and he is left in the dirt. Not to mention a lion (50 mph) or a cheetah (70 mph).

But according to scientists at the University of Manchester, who have calculated the running speed of the Tyrannosaurus Rex at 18 mph, Bolt could outrun the 6.6-ton megabeast. To find out more land animals speeds.

Javier Sotomayor of Cuba is the world’s highest jumper with a lofty 8-feet leap in 1993. If Sotomayor were 6 feet tall, his jump would equate to 1.3 times his height, whereas the spittlebug (the world’s greatest jumper) can jump 100 times its height, or 28 inches. That’s equivalent to a human jumping over a 690-foot building. Want to learn more about the spittlebug?

But just when it seems that humans can’t compete with the rest of the animal kingdom, just remember: we have planes, trains and automobiles that can take us faster and higher than any animal alive.

July 19, 2008

Talk about beating the heat:Jorge Pacheco dominated the 135-mile Badwater Ultramarathon Tuesday, a challenge running from the lowest spot in North America (Death Valley) to the trailhead of the highest spot in the lower 48 (Mt. Whitney). With 17,700 feet of cumulative vertical ascent and descent, that's like running up ten Empire State Buildings, down five Eiffel Towers, and across the state of Louisiana.

Pro-Tibet politi-climbing is an Everest no-no. Nepal slapped a two-year climbing ban on William Bryant Holland, the climber who was booted off Everest in April for carrying a "Free Tibet" banner in his pack. Holland has bagged five of the Seven Summits, but his next Everest push will have to until 2010 when the ban is up.

Hawaii may soon be exporting something new to the mainland - its garbage. Oahu is running out of landfill space and is currently reviewing bids from mainland landfill companies. But there's good news in garbage, too: Soon Ottawa could be turning around its own trash with a new waste-to-energy facility in the works for 2009 which could provide energy to 19,000 homes. One town in eastern Japan is nipping the problem in the bud. The mayor has vowed to create a "zero waste town" with no waste collection – just 34 categories of compost and recycling.

Trash seems to be moving almost as fast as the new 3G iPhone these days. But what to do with your old gear? Instead of pitching your old tech toys, find a freecycling community to give them a home.

July 18, 2008

Text by expedition leader Trevor Frost, a National Geographic Young Explorer grantee

After two weeks in the field, the Gabon Cave Expedition team has learned to embrace the unpredictable.

Our first stop was in Lastourville, where we visited three caves. The first cave, Paouen 1, had a large entrance and a few thousand bats. It was also the cave where Dr. Richard Oslisly had previously found evidence of ancient weapon-making rituals. While the huge piles of bat guano didn't stop the expedition from exploring further, the village chief did by not give us permission to access the large room holding Oslisly’s discoveries.

Luckily, the next day the team visited with a chief from a neighboring village. He granted us full access to the Lastourville Cave—and it turned out to be a wonderful find!

The half-mile-long cave had a small river with waterfalls, a 100-foot pit, a lot of interesting creatures (including a frog that is possibly new to science) and thousands of bats.

Our expedition team spent three days exploring, photographing, and filming inside Lastourville Cave and one other cave outside of Lastourville. With loads of photos and video footage in hand, we were ready to take on our next location. Reviewing topographic maps and previous cave reports helped us determine that there were likely few new caves to find in this area, so we turned our attention toward the Ndende and Tchibanga area (southwest of Gabon). After a tedious three-day drive (with broken four-wheel drive), the team arrived safely in Lebamba, about 19 miles outside of Ndende.

Now staged at the Bongolo Hospital in Lebamba (one of the best in all of Africa), we are preparing for three weeks of adventure and cave finding in some of Gabon’s most remote and pristine tropical forest. Speaking with locals we are hearing stories of kilometer long caves that no one has ever mapped, so we are all very excited! Please stay tuned at blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/gabon-caves.

July 16, 2008

Acting cool is not the same as being cool. As the head of training for the Navy SEALs once said, "The Rambo types are the first to go." Siebert wrote in his book The Survivor Personality that "combat survivors . . . have a relaxed awareness." People who are destined to be good at survival will get upset when something bad happens, but they will quickly regain emotional balance and immediately begin figuring out what the new reality looks like, what the new rules are, and what they can do about it. In the past few decades, technologies like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have allowed researchers such as Bruce McEwen at Rockefeller University to demonstrate that stress changes the shape and chemistry of the brain, resulting in trouble remembering, difficulty completing tasks, and altered behavior. In effect, losing your cool makes you stupid. Examine the way you handle yourself under pressure: Do you blow up when you’re stuck in traffic or when someone cuts you off? Are you able to accept failure philosophically and move on with resolve to do better next time? If you’re rejected—in love, in business, in sports—do you stew over it? Practice being calm in the face of small emergencies and you’ll be more prepared to deal with large ones.

July 15, 2008

Last fall's disappearance of Steve Fossett—one of the 21st century's most celebrated aviators, the first person to fly around the world alone and nonstop by both hot air balloon and plane—prompted one of the most extensive search and rescue efforts in U.S. history. But neither Fossett nor his presumedly crashed plane were ever found. The Civil Air Patrol stopped searching back in October. A smattering of private efforts continued in the succeeding months. But they, too, failed, and Fossett was declared legally dead by an Illinois judge in February.

I joined the search for Fossett to write ADVENTURE's special report "The Vanishing" (December 2007/January 2008). In the article, we faulted the search effort for relying too much on plane- and 4WD-based search crews, and too little on hikers, who could have combed terrain that couldn't be seen well from the sky or dirt roads. "Maybe what was needed was a lot more boots on dirt."

Maybe so. And that is a theory that new search teams, stocked with adventure racers and backcountry experts, will be testing this summer. Boots are finally hitting the dirt in a serious way.

Will the new teams succeed in finding the remains of Fossett and his plane? Probably not. The area of Nevada and California where he is believed to have crashed is still so vast that the odds are against success. But these new campaigns are the best hope yet.